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Thursday, March 21, 2013

Ron Smith: Manning an Unfinished Story

The Research Commons at Waikato contains a long review by me of the
circumstances which surrounded the death in East Timor (Timor Leste) in 1999 of
New Zealand Army Private Leonard Manning (http://researchcommons.waikato.ac.nz/handle/10289/2136#fulltext). The review was written in 2005, after nearly
six years of unsuccessful efforts on my part to find out what had happened and
what lessons could be learned. My
earlier accounts, which were published in the New Zealand International
Review, laid out the official version of events and raised some questions
of my own about events on the day (24 July). I pursued these over the following
years, culminating in a series of Official Information Requests, which were all
refused and summarily dismissed by the Ombudsman. There the matter has stood for eight years.

In January of this year, a retired Indonesian general, who served
in East Timor at the relevant time (and at the relevant place), published his memoirs
(Syahnakri, Timor Timur – The Untold
Story). Pages 290-294 of this work,
which I have in translation from an Australian source, contain an account of
the 24 July incident, drawn from interviews with the ‘militia group’ and
observations by the general himself. This is significantly at variance with the New
Zealand official account and suggests a need for the two accounts to be
reconciled.

The crucial core of the New Zealand official account came to me
directly from the (then) NZ Army Land Force Commander, Brigadier Mateparae in a
personal briefing in September 2001, a little over a year after Private Manning
was shot. This was supplemented by the
release, under the Official Information Act, of a series of interviews with
members of Manning’s unit, conducted by Lt Col Harper (presently professor at
the Massey University Centre for Defence and Security Studies). Together these described a patrol of six
soldiers lying-up overnight and then, after reports of a ‘threat group’ in the
vicinity, ascending a ridge track in thick bush. As they approach the summit,
they come under fire from several points and ‘feel vulnerable’, ‘a bit sort of
stunned’. There is little return of
fire. Private Manning is shot early
on. Another patrol member can see
Manning down but cannot get close to him.
He withdraws back down the hill.
On joining the rest of the patrol, who have also retreated, he reports
that Private Manning is dead.

General Syahnakri’s account of these events is drawn from interviews
with the ‘threat group’ (who were, in fact, farmers, who had come across the
nearby border to steal cattle). These
persons were subsequently arrested and tried by the Indonesian authorities,
which is how their side of the story comes to be known. The crucial part of the general’s testimony
is that the site of the action was, in fact, a Peace-Keeping Force (PKF) observation
post and that the party of four* well-armed cattle thieves (led by a
pro-integrationist) just happened to be passing when they noticed, ‘that the
PKF troops on guard were resting/inattentive ‘– so they resolved to undertake a
sudden attack, and a fire-fight ensued’.
(*MFAT representatives who attended the trial speak of 6.)

In the New Zealand account, New Zealand forces return to the site
of the action, late in the afternoon of the 24th and are able to confirm
that Private Manning is dead and that his machine-gun has been taken. The insurgents/cattle-rustlers are long
gone. Sometime after this, the
Peace-Keeping Force would have undertaken an after-action examination of the
site. In the course of this, they would
have noted how many people were involved, where they were situated and what
weapons were being used. They would have
picked up cartridge cases and noted how many shots were fired by each
participant. On the basis of this, they
would have drawn a diagram (or diagrams) of how the action proceeded, and
prepared a formal After Action Report.
Such a report would have been the basis of the sketch (and accompanying
details) of an action involving NZ forces in the same area twelve months later,
as published in Operation East Timor (John Crawford and Glyn Harper,
Reed, 2001). Interestingly, this same
publication gives no such detail for the case in which a New Zealand soldier
was actually killed. Instead, they
repeat the official line that the New Zealand patrol was attacked by ‘a large
force of militia’. In fact, as we now
know, it was four farmers (or maybe 6), albeit armed and with anti-East Timor
independence sentiments.

In my formal request under the Official Information Act, I asked
specifically for the After Action Report in relation to the Manning incident
and this request was summarily dismissed.
Clearly, the report would enable us to resolve the apparent
inconsistencies here. It would also give
us a more accurate account of what really happened and we might learn something
of value from that. Certainly, that was
the basis on which I proceeded at the time.
It was hard then (and even harder now) to understand what risk to
national security or to the privacy of individuals, might outweigh the benefits
of transparency. We are really only left
with protecting persons and their reputations.
The blunt term for this is a cover-up.

4 comments:

Anonymous
said...

The unavoidable conclusion, from a soldier's point of view, is that the patrol panicked and fled. The minor tactical skill displayed was appalling and indicates the depths to which our proud profession of arms had sunk under just a few years misguided policy direction.

Much of what I just read above is incorrect. To the poster above, if you are/were a soldier, you obviously lack any of the loyalty that is normally part of the culture of our armed forces. Secondly, the soldiers involved in this incident on that day were all of the highest calibre and acted entirely appropriately given the amount of fire they recieved and the terrain.

They did the job that they were told to do initially, which was to confirm the information provided by a local villager. From there they were ordered to follow up when all the signs indicated a very large well armed force. They were not a fighting force, their numbers were never going to make this this. Their Company commander wanted the glory of finding a militia force, but all the signs indicated that this element was well trained, well equiped and was in a comanding defensive position. Also with some poor decisions through the evening this element was fully are of the UN presence close buy. So they would be heighten and ready.

there was more than 4-6 militia on the top of that hill on that day, the forensic detail shows that a force of a least 20+ was up there and their forces did take casualties, confirmed by myself and other forces that occupied that ridge within the 24 hour period after the fire fight.Fact of the matter is that the forces that went up that hill that day fought and acted in a professional and top skill manner and should never have to answer to anyone outside of that situation ever again.

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